Last year, when Downhill Battle organized Grey Tuesday (www.greytuesday.org), we
were running a radio. Today that they are launching "Eyes on the Screen", we are
doing a cinema. Call it coincidence, call it the Bit-Torrent Revolution, call it
what you like. We are anyway very happy to announce that Pirate Cinema Berlin is
joining the campaign and hosting a screening this Sunday. See below for details.

Eyes on the Prize is the most renowned civil rights documentary of all time; for
many people, it is how they first learned about the Civil Rights Movement. But
this film has not been available on video or television for the past 10 years
simply because of expired copyright licenses. We cannot allow copyright red tape
to keep this film from the public any longer. So today we are making digital
versions of the film available for download. Join us in building a new mass
audience for this film: organize or attend a screening in your city, town,
school or home.

Sunk by Copyright

So why has Eyes on the Prize been unavailable for the past 10 years? Copyright
restrictions. For example, the film includes footage of a group of people
singing "Happy Birthday" to Martin Luther King. Incredibly, "Happy Birthday" is
under copyright and some rights holders believe that they should be given
licensing fees if the song appears in any film, even a documentary. (Yes that's
correct, "Happy Birthday" is restricted under copyright--so if you've ever sung
it in a restaurant or a park, you could literally be breaking the law.)

But "Happy Birthday" is just the beginning. Eyes on the Prize is made up of news
footage, photographs, songs and lyrics from the Civil Rights Movement that are
tangled up in a web of licensing restrictions. Many of these licenses had
expired by 1995 and the film's production company, Blackside, could not afford
the exorbitant costs of renewing them. "Eyes on the Prize" has been unavailable
to the public ever since.

How could this happen?

Copyright law has expanded out of control, and its public mission is no longer
being served. Copyright was originally designed to encourage creativity and
innovation--much like patent law. But for the past 50 years multi-national
corporations like Disney and the major record labels have aggressively lobbied
Congress to expand and expand and expand the reach of copyright law. Instead of
lasting 20 years and requiring registration (like patents do) copyright has
become automatic and now corporate copyrights last 90 years.

In addition to the excessive 90 year copyright, corporations have created a
legal environment that effectively strips the free speech rights of documentary
filmmakers and artists to excerpt copyrighted works for their productions.
Nowadays even incidental copyrighted material appearing in a documentary (e.g. a
television that's visible while people are talking) is being tossed on the
cutting room floor because filmmakers are threatened with lawsuits. Copyright
has become so twisted that it now severely restricts innovation, creativity and
speech rather than encouraging it. In this case, our unworkable copyright law
has kept "Eyes on the Prize" out of homes and classrooms, depriving us of a
crucial historical record.

Last week Lawrence Guyot, a prominent civil rights leader with the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party, told the Washington Post, "This is analogous to
stopping the circulation of all the books about Martin Luther King, stopping the
circulation of all the books about Malcolm X, stopping the circulation of books
about the founding of America... I would call upon everyone who has access to
'Eyes on the Prize' to openly violate any and all laws regarding its showing."

So, are these community screenings civil disobedience?

We don't think so at all. The First Amendment and the doctrine of "fair use" can
clearly be extended to include the right to distribute a film of such important
historical significance as Eyes, when such a film is otherwise unavailable. The
history of the Civil Rights Movement is simply too important for us to let its
most comprehensive documentary languish in copyright purgatory. This Black
History Month we're working to ensure as many people as possible have access to
this essential film.

But that doesn't mean that the law shouldn't change. Our present copyright
clearance environment forces filmmakers to pay exorbitant fees and to go through
piles of paperwork before their films ever see the light of day. Consequently,
many works of art will never be released or even attempted and that weakens our
culture and our shared history. We need to move back to the original purpose of
copyright and find ways to ensure that creativity is supported rather than
unnecessarily stifled. And Congress should positively reaffirm the fair use
rights of the public... so that "free speech" doesn't just mean the right to
hire a lawyer.

How You Can Help

You can be involved with this effort simply by downloading the video and sharing
it with your family and your community. You can host a screening or look at the
list of screenings to find one near you. And please tell as many people as you
can about this project; efforts like this succeed because of word of mouth.

About Downhill Battle

Downhill Battle is a non-profit organization based in Worcester, MA that is
organizing Eyes on the Screen. The goal of our organization is to support
participatory culture and bring positive change to the music industry. Downhill
Battle launched in August 2003 to build a grassroots, public-interest voice for
ending the corporate record label monopoly and putting culture back in the hands
of artists and fans. Our outreach campaigns have reached millions of people and
have helped create a more balanced debate on these issues. To learn more about
what we do, visit our front page and subscribe to our RSS Feed. If you have a
question or suggestion about Eyes on the Screen, feel free to email us at
eyes@downhillbattle.org.